


Why Badwater Basin Was Bad

by PreludeInZ



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Badwater AU, F/M, MerMay, hiya there tf2 fandom haven't seen much of me lately have ya, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 03:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10958307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: Being a brief exploration of Mermaid!Pauling, one of my very favourite incarnations of one of my very favourite characters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valoscope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valoscope/gifts).



> For val, one of my oldest fandom friends, who drew the art that inspired it to begin with <3

It hadn’t been named after the Badwater Basin in California. The water in Badwater was perfectly drinkable. It had been tapped, treated like a reservoir, it supplied water all over the badlands. The signs posted didn’t warn about drinking the water. Men who went too near the edge of it died for other reasons.

It wasn’t that Scout didn’t see the warning signs. It was more that he didn’t actually believe in them, on a matter of principle. He’d never met a chain link fence he hadn’t wanted to climb over. It didn’t matter how many signs it had on it, or what they said.

And the Badlands were dry. And hot and dusty and he was sick of running around hot and parched himself. It made him lonesome for the high heat of summer back home, where he’d been able to pick one of a myriad of beaches, run to the water’s edge, throw himself in. Beaches were cheap, and he was a damn good swimmer.

So he’d been warned away from the place, by every single one of the mercs. Probably they just didn’t realize what they were missing. So all right. Getting to the end of the road that wound up to the gate, it was a lot deeper than he’d realized. You could see, even clambering over the top of the fence, how it shaded pale green along the edges, then plummeted into an inky black. Deep, okay. Lots of water. He wasn’t scared of deep water.

The basin itself was enclosed by a high ridge, secluded at the top of a road that wound up through the cluster of buildings at the base of the cliffs. You couldn’t see, until you got over the fence, the lights that ringed the water’s edge. Tall, bright. Not bright enough to penetrate down into the depths of the reservoir, but there was a moon that night, too. High, full. The moon wasn’t bright enough either and even though the light of it was white and cold, there was still heat baking off the stones, trapped by the cliff faces, still lingering from the blazing August sun.

The place had a very deliberate look about it. The fence, the walls, the lights. It looked set aside and separated and approaching the water’s edge, Scout sort of started to wonder if maybe this wasn’t the world’s best idea. There was no one around to see him chicken out, nothing to lose face over. But he was already kicking off his shoes, socks. Shrugging out of his shirt. Well, he was halfway naked, he was committed now. Even though something about the way the water looked, with the lights and the moon conniving some trick between them, to make it seem like it was just a big gaping hole in the ground. Like to fall into it would be to fall forever.

This was a poetic and not particularly typical sentiment. Something about the moonlight. Or something. He shivered. What the hell, shivering. Middle of August. In New Mexico. It was hot as hell, and he was going to throw himself in a reservoir.

Scout’s ma had wanted him to go out for swimming. Properly, like someone who meant it. He’d humoured her, joined the swim team in highschool, done well. _Hated_ it. Won trophies, couldn’t see the point. Hated the coach, hated the competition. Had to be dragged through the sport, kicking and sulking. It had been his ma who’d finally suggested he quit. The heart went out of it, when he did it competitively.

Still, he’d picked up a few things. He had impeccable form, stamina. Everyone assumed running was his first and only love, and he was perfectly content to let everybody continue to assume so. Scout adored water, in the secret passionate way that made him embarrassed to admit to it. Like it would get him made fun of. But that didn’t stop him from taking a deep breath, rocking up onto his toes and sprinting to the edge of the water, cannonballing in. This had been discouraged at swim meets. It was a big part of why he’d quit.

Well, _now_ it was cold. Deep water was cold. Obviously, deep water was cold. Dark, too. Not scared. He loved this too much to be scared, not _really_ scared, loved the slight resistance, the slight pressure in his ears, the way the world was just gone. The way time slowed down to a crawl. He had lungs like a goddamn horse, he could just stay under here for ages. Maybe that was why there were lights. They reached further below the surface than he’d thought they would, spears of white light.

Stupid, though. Had to be another reason. All those signs, there had to be something important about this place. Dangerous, maybe. Something that kept people out of the water, that wasn’t the reason why there were lights.

Of course, if it weren’t for the lights, he wouldn’t have noticed the shadow that passed above him, turned, just in time to see a ghostly pale face, green, impossible eyes. And a pair of vicious, grasping hands, webbed, scary strong. And downward, deeper, then. Not up towards the stabbing white lights.


	2. Chapter 2

She had most of the way drowned him before a mammalian spark at the back if her brain realized it was Scout. It was not supposed to be Scout. Her one night off, _one night off,_ the whole year. Mr. Hale was supposed to be bringing her a sturgeon to play with. To hunt through the inky depths of Badwater Basin, to playfully tease and toy with, and then to grin with the rows and rows of needle sharp teeth that she only got to use once a year, and tear it into sweet, delicious pieces.

That was part of her contract. That had been the deal. It was just about impossible to get a job when you were a mermaid. Harder still if you specialized in clerical work. She had met Mr. Hale off the Grand Banks in the North Atlantic. He had been hunting sharks. She had not been a shark. He had harpooned her anyway, right through her gorgeous, silvery violet tail. That had made her mad, and she had torn a good third of his skin off before the pair of them had both been hauled, still brawling, onto the decks of the good ship “Pretty Margaret” and she had lost the advantage. Her scales and her beautiful teeth and her gills had melted away, her lungs had burst into a functional state for the first time in her life. She vomited seawater and krill for twenty minutes, while the ship’s doctor pushed the harpoon through her leg, bandaged it. She had shivered and cried on the deck, Saxton Hale had draped his big canvas jacket over top of her. She had launched herself out of her puddle of seawater and tried to tear his throat out with her stupid, human teeth. Apparently this had qualified as a job interview in his books. He had hired her on the spot.

And he was supposed to bring her a sturgeon. Or a barracuda. Something scrappy, something she could fight. She adored a good fight, if she could have it on her turf, such as it was. One year he had thrown her a pirate. With a hat, an eyepatch, a peg leg. A big scimitar and a bad attitude. She had laughed. Underwater, her laughter was like a silver knife on glass. Mr. Hale had a good sense of humor. But Miss Pauling hoped he hadn’t thought it would be funny to throw her one of the mercs.

She did not want to fight Scout. Well, the part of her that spend the other 364 days of the year in the Badlands definitely didn’t. The part of her that lived in Badwater was pulling her lovely perfect lips back from her terrifying teeth. He was bubbling the last bit of air from his lungs, anyway, not much of a fight.

Oh right. Breathing.

On instinct, she had first grabbed him about the throat, twisted in the water her tail and ethereal, silken fins twining through the water behind her, forcing him deeper. There were bones on the bottom of Badwater Basin.

The warmth of him, the feel of the frantic fluttering pulse in the hollow of his throat made her feel like she was starving. She was not, she had had a lovely Cobb Salad and an orange soda for dinner. But that wasn’t the part of her that was actually starving. Her teeth ached to tear a chunk out of him, to fill the water around her with blossoms and ribbons of lacy red blood, like it was her wedding day.

It took a great deal of personal fortitude to twist in the water again. To let him go, grab him again about the waist. To swim upward towards the moonlight, abandoning the feral part inside of her, the part that keened and cried for hunger, for want of freedom. Powerful, easy strokes of her long tail, even with the resistance of a limp, half-drowned body dragging behind her.

Breaking the surface was like breaking her heart.

The chain link fence, the gate with the padlock rattled, swung open. There was a cheery, brassy honk, and a big beast of a truck with a water tank strapped to the back came growling up to the water’s edge. Apparently Mr. Hale wasn’t to blame for the incursion into her territory. Oh, Scout.

They weren’t far from the shallow ring around the Basin perimeter. A few more quick, easy strokes, she was in shallow water, hauling Scout above the surface, curling her tail against the gritty bottom, exposed above the waist to the warm, still night air.

“You got started without me!” Mr. Hale boomed. “I even brought two, this year! Two stunning beasts from the Adriatic Sea, feisty as all heck. Twelve feet long between the two of ‘em!”

The mermaid part of her brain was dissolving away by the moment, but she still had a mouthful of teeth that she couldn’t get English around. And the human part of her was starting to get really worried that she had drowned a really expensive mercenary. So she shook her head, pointed urgently, imperatively at Scout. Pantomimed that it had been an accident.

Mr. Hale was extremely good at charades. He laughed heartily, splashed into the shallows. “Don’t worry your pretty little fins about it! Looks like you barely drowned him at all! I oughta give you some pointers on drowning folks.”

Her teeth, her lovely, dangerous teeth, were fading away from her as well now, but with the last glimpse of them, she curled back her lips and hissed at the impudence. Even if he was her boss.

Mr. Hale just laughed, and proceeded to bully the water out of Scout, until he was coughing and choking and gasping on his own.

Miss Pauling sat in the shallows, naked and trembling. It didn’t hurt, going back. Not physically. But it felt like everything that was beautiful about her melted away. She had been born to be beautiful, to lure people into the water by looking fragile and lovely and delicate. In Badwater, though, she was powerful, dangerous.

“You are a gorgeous creature,” Mr. Hale said, watching as the last of her silvery fins faded into dappled moonlight on the water. “I sure am sorry I missed the sight of you.”

Miss Pauling liked Mr. Hale, because when he told her she was gorgeous, he was the only person she knew of who could actually know what they were talking about.


	3. Chapter 3

Oh good, he hadn’t drowned.

Oh good, his boss was there.

Oh good, Miss Pauling was there.

Oh good, Miss Pauling was naked.

Oh god.

“Up and at ‘em, son, I don’t pay you to lie around!” Saxton Hale only really operated at one volume, and it was shouting.

His ma had given him one piece of advice, back before he’d left home, when he’d been younger and–almost impossibly–scrappier than he was now, inclined to look for a fight wherever he could find one.

She had said, “Sweetheart, you do what you want, I raised you to come out on top of most of what you get into. But do your poor old mother a favour, and don’t you fuck around with anybody who _smiles all the time_.”

So Scout was very, very careful about Mr. Hale. “Nosir. Sorry, sir. S’only there is a naked lady who I have to work with around, sir.”

“And a damn fine looking creature she is! But, being as you are young, and perhaps less experienced in the matters of beautiful women in the moonlight,  I will gallantly hand the lady something to wear. Where’s your shirt gotten to, son? I’ll give her that.”

“I’ve got it,” Miss Pauling sounded irritated, tired. “Scout, what the hell were you doing out here?”

She was tugging his shirt on, silhouetted in the light of the moon, and he definitely was not watching. God, he was in so much trouble.

“Uh. Um.”

Mr. Hale seemed to know exactly what everybody had been up to. “Out for a swim, just like you, Miss Pauling. Tresspassing! I don’t blame you, though. Only decent body of water in the Badlands! What brought me out here, myself. Only I brought two big beautiful sturgeon, and I’m gonna wrassle ‘em until I’ve got enough steaks for the company barbecue, because _somebody_ ought to. What a remarkable and completely legitimate explanation for this incredible coincidence.”

Mr. Hale was the boss. You didn’t argue with the boss. “Right. Okay. Ugh.”

Scout had been swimming his entire life. Always found a way to do it, always found an excuse. He had lungs like a goddamn horse, impeccable form, stamina. He’d never been anywhere remotely near drowning. It was unpleasant. He hoped he never did it again. “Sorry, sir. Sorry, Miss Pauling.”

“Think nothing of it, son!” Mr. Hale held out a hand, hauled Scout to his feet. “Stick around! Gonna be a hell of a show, these’re beautiful fish. Do you happen to know how to tape a knife to a fish? I want to give them a sporting chance.”

“No, sir. Uh. Sorry. Maybe try some rope?” He was dizzy, now, tired. Drowning was a hell of a thing, it sure took a lot out of a person. He just wanted to go, go home, get to sleep. “I oughta get back, we’re supposed to be headed to Dustbowl in the morning. Sorry again, Miss Pauling.”

She just sighed. “I need to go, too. Sorry, Mr. Hale. I hope you enjoy fighting your fish. I left my truck down the road, Scout. Did you want a ride back?” Miss Pauling seemed sad, somehow. Really sad, lovely and small in the moonlight. But sad.

“Uh, sure. Thanks. Night, Mr. Hale.”

They didn’t talk all the way down the road, to where she’d parked her purple truck. She made him turn around, shrugged out of his t-shirt, redressed. Climbed into the cab of her truck, didn’t seem to mind, or even to notice that they were both still soaking wet, that the upholstery was getting damp.

It was palpably awkward. Scout’s tolerance for awkward silences was almost clinically low. “Uh. Nice night, huh?”

“Mm.”

Well, that hadn’t worked. “So…you like skinny dipping, Miss Pauling?”

“Sure seems that way, doesn’t it?”

This wasn’t any good. She sometimes had a way about her, like she liked to be chased. Alluring, that was the word. He was used to being shut down by Miss Pauling, But she was usually playful about it, just a little. Enough so he knew he wasn’t _really_ bugging her. It wasn’t any fun to actually _bug_ a girl. Maybe he had without meaning to. “…M’sorry if I scared you, tonight. WIth the swimmin’ thing. Didn’t know you were there, everybody’d always told me to stay away. I figured it’d be empty, figured if we _drank_ the water, there couldn’t be any problem swimmin’ in it. It’s just so damn hot, this time a’year, it just kills me. Back home…I didn’t know I’d miss it, y’know? Having the ocean real close. I never really thought about how it’d be different, other places, how you can’t just drop everything when it’s hot, go run down to the water and jump in. I used to goddamn _live_ in the ocean when I was growin’ up. Pretty much. I mean, you know. I just got lonely for it. And tonight, I dunno. Just seemed like a good night for it. D’you ever get a funny feeling about a place? I’ve had kinda a funny feeling about Badwater for years.”

“Badwater’s nice. I like Badwater.”

That was a bit better. He could work with that. “Yeah! I mean…s’all there _is_ out here, but…I dunno. Better than nothing. I gotta get some time off, I gotta go home. You ever live by the ocean, Miss Pauling? S’really nice.”

“I did.” She smiled a little now, still sad. “It seems like a long time ago.”  She looked at him, speculatively, across the cab of the truck. It was dark, and shadowed as her face was, her skin pale in the light that there was from the moon, her eyes were suddenly eerily familiar. “You nearly drowned. You still would go back? In the water?”

There was something about her eyes that had made him nearly forget about that. “Oh. Uh. Well, I never nearly drowned before. That kinda sucked. I don’t really…I dunno, s’all sorta muddled up in my head. I dunno what happened, I’m a damn good swimmer. So…I dunno, maybe not back to Badwater. It’s _deep_ , I didn’t realize. And, um. I think maybe something lives in there. Maybe I shoulda read some of those signs. But…back home, the ocean, yeah. If I was there right now, I think I still would. I think that’s a thing maybe gets hold of you, maybe never lets go.” Well, now he was just embarrassed. He’d seen _her_ stark naked–well, not _really_ , just sort of in the dark, with the light of the moon behind her. Just the shape of her. She didn’t seem bothered by it in the least. He felt like something about her melancholy silence had put him under a microscope. “I dunno, Miss Pauling. Never mind. S’just a buncha bullshit I never told anybody. I talk too damn much.”

“Mmm.” She fell silent again. Probably about five minutes passed. And then, “I didn’t mind. About the ocean. I didn’t know you liked the water. You could tell me about it some more.”

There was something about the way she said it, like she was homesick for something, too. Like maybe it would help if he talked about it some more. So he did. And she smiled, eventually. So wide that her teeth flashed in the dark.


End file.
